Something truly interesting is currently happening in the PC space. Ask any random internet commenter how the PC market is doing, and I'm pretty sure you're going to get something along the lines of 'everybody but Apple is failing'. Turns out this isn't the case - Lenovo has just become the world's largest PC and laptop vendor, after three years of steady growth in sales and profits. "During the second fiscal quarter, Lenovo's worldwide PC shipments grew 10.3 percent, in a difficult market that was down eight percent year-over-year, the 14th quarter in a row that the company has grown faster than the PC industry as a whole. In this challenging environment, Lenovo achieved its highest-ever worldwide market share of 15.6 percent, gaining share points in every geography, every product category in which it competes, and in every respective customer segment." Very impressive.

The last time I serviced a Lenovo, their default Windows install (this was for XP) was one of the most bloated I'd ever seen. No joke, the recovery was a set of six cds, and it required all of them. When I looked at what got installed, I about ran away in horror. This was a Lenovo Thinkpad (sorry, I don't remember the series or model) from 2009. Have they gotten better at this? One of the reasons I like Apple machines, apart from OS X, is that they don't come with gigabytes of bloatware. Yes, I can wipe it and install a clean Windows on PC laptops, but that hastle really should not be necessary when I just want to open it up and start using the thing. Can anyone comment on how Lenovo's doing with their default installs these days? Are there any PC vendors that just install an unmodified Windows (with the exception of hardware drivers, of course)?